Batting practice tees are well known in the art. Typically, the devices include an upright holder or tube assembly for holding a ball that is attached to a base assembly, such as a home plate. The tube assembly may have a telescopic construction that allows a user of the device to adjust the height of the ball, and thereby simulate high and low pitches and compensate for different sized batters or players.
Certain tees of the prior art can be rotated to a series of different positions on its base through a pin and hole system, as well as be placed in multi-position tee holes formed in the base. The performance of many prior art tees, however, is limited by the placement of the tube assembly on the base. For example, stationary tees restrict the ball to a single rotation over the center of the base. Many prior art rotating tees limit tee stem placement to a few locations over home plate. By restricting tee locations to particular positions on the base, the tee does not provide full coverage of the hitting area. Furthermore, current tees of the prior art generally do not allow for batters to hit balls in front of the base or areas extending along the sides of the base where optimal force can be applied.
Various batting practice tees are disclosed in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,489,411 to Morelli et al., discloses a batting tee that uses a horizontal support member having a slot along its length. Morelli et al. attempt to provide additional tee adjustment by causing a slotted member to pivot about a single point anchored in the base. U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,924 to Wilson et al also disclose a slotted horizontal support member which is used in a manner similar to that of U.S. Pat. No. 3,489,411. However, instead of pivoting about an end point of the horizontal arm as disclosed in Morelli et al, Wilson et al. causes the horizontal arm to pivot about a central pivot point which is in the slot of the horizontal arm.
Some prior art patents have disclosed channels extending in different directions. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,962,924 to James, a batting practice tee is disclosed that includes a base having an upper surface and a lower surface including a slot extending in a plurality of discrete directions over these surfaces. The “discrete directions” for these channels are designed to be separate and distinct pathway directions for the batting tee to be positioned to and are discontinuous from each other. As such, the channels disclosed in James have the disadvantage of not allowing the batting tee to be moved in a horizontal direction across the entire base. Furthermore, the batting tee is not capable of being moved throughout the top area of a standard home plate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,004,234 to Hollis discloses a batting practice tee having two separate and distinct grooved slots in the base assembly. As explained in Hollis, these two slots are “spaced apart” and are used in conjunction with a horizontal support member having a pedestal at each end with a batter's pole to be positioned on the pedestal. The batter's pole does not appear to be itself positioned in the grooved track even though a track exists across the horizontal plane of the base assembly. Furthermore, as shown in the drawings of the patent, the Hollis batting tee does not permit the ball to be positioned at any desired location over the base assembly.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,238,307 to Owen discloses a batting practice tee having a grooved channel with an open slot in beveled edges of the base assembly. Owen further discloses two channels in the base assembly with the direction of each channel being different. The Owen's patent, however, uses a base member which is not a standardized--regulation size home plate. As explained in Owen, a forward extension of a traditional home plate is provided. As such, the “grooved-like” tracks of the Owen batting tee are designed to extend beyond the traditional “home plate” area, that is, into a forward extension area of the base. Disadvantageously, the batting tee of Owen is not movable in a horizontal plane across and through the surface of a standard home plate area, does not cover each position over the strike zone of the base assembly, and is not easily moved from one channel to another channel.
Further disadvantages of both the Owen and Hollis patents are discussed in abandoned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/784,640 to Tsai filed on Dec. 29, 2003. The Tsai application discloses a batting practice tee that includes a home plate having a top face in which a plurality of channels extending in different directions are embedded. The channels disclosed in the Tsai application are not continuous but overlap each other and do not allow the tee to be transferred from channel to channel within the tracking system.
Each of the foregoing prior art batting tees also suffers from a common disability in that only a slight pressure applied to the batting tee while hitting a ball can cause the horizontal arm to pivot and/or move, thereby creating an unwanted re-positioning of the tee. Furthermore, upon hitting a ball on the tee, the transmission of force can cause damage to the connection of the arm to the base and undesirably move the base from its support surface.
As such, what is needed is a multi-adjustable batting tee that is movable across the entire hitting area in the horizontal plane of a base assembly, without disengagement of the tube assembly from the base assembly, while simultaneously providing enhanced stability to minimize unwanted repositioning of the tee upon use.